Category: Government

The governing body of a nation, state, or community.

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Attorney Immunity Bars Claims for Fraud and Conversion

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A state supreme court recently held that attorneys can assert immunity as a defense to claims such as fraud and conversion if the conduct in question is in furtherance of client representation. ABA Section of Litigation leaders see a trend in multiple states upholding the doctrine of attorney immunity. They caution, however, that there are limits to the doctrine and that it should not be considered a “license to misbehave.” The plaintiff sued the defense attorney for fraud and conversion for mishandling evidence of allegedly faulty brakes Bethel v. Quilling A plaintiff’s husband died in a car accident while towing a trailer. The plaintiff sued the trailer’s manufacturer, alleging that faulty brakes caused the accident. Counsel for the manufacturer disassembled and tested the brakes during the course of discovery, but before plaintiff’s counsel had an opportunity to examine them. The plaintiff then sued the defense attorney (and firm) from the personal injury case for, among other things, fraud and conversion in connection with their handling of the evidence. The trial court in the second case, Bethel v. Quilling, granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss on the basis of attorney immunity. The court of appeals affirmed. Counsel’s actions were “possibly wrongful,” the court explained, but “were the ‘kinds of actions’ that are part of an attorney’s duties in representing a client in litigation,” such that attorney immunity barred all of the plaintiff’s claims. FULL STORY Read More

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DOJ: Courts Can’t Hold DOJ Accountable If It Drops A Case For Corrupt Reasons

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The Justice Department defended its decision to drop charges against Michael Flynn at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, arguing broadly that any scrutiny of its decision would wreak havoc on the department. U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Jeff Wall cast the argument in stark constitutional terms, suggesting that the judge in the Flynn case had already damaged both the Justice Department and the judiciary by subjecting the DOJ’s decision to move to drop charges against Flynn to public examination. “This has already become, and I think is only becoming more of, a public spectacle,” Wall said of actions by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan for the District of Columbia. Wall repeatedly expressed worry at the idea that Sullivan would attempt to conduct some kind of discovery at the DOJ through affidavits or declarations. Sullivan has yet to suggest that he would do so, and has yet to rule on the DOJ’s motion to dismiss. “You’ll have a proceeding forcing us to explain ourselves,” Wall said. “The district court has left itself room not just for documents of that kind or witnesses; that is going to intrude on our deliberative process.” He added that the “spectacle” would end up “impugning the motives of the Attorney General of the United States.” Wall described the amicus brief of John Gleeson — the outside attorney Sullivan appointed to oppose the DOJ request to dismiss the case — as a “polemic” alleging “gross misconduct.” Broadly, though, Wall focused on the idea that court proceedings were not the forum for handling allegations of corruption against the Justice Department in making prosecutorial decisions. That, he maintained, is a political question to be handled away from the courts. The Flynn case is just one example of… Read More

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